<p>EC's include columnist for school paper, community service throgh USY, Student Advisor (picked by School principal), Drama Club 4 years President Senior Year</p>
<p>This is just a guess, but while her GPA is clearly very strong, the ACT composite scores (if I am reading them correctly) seem to be in the high 20’s and aren’t as strong. Did she take a lot of challenging classes and APs?</p>
<p>Hate to start with the negative, but since you asked the question that way…</p>
<p>The thing that immediately stands out is that her ACT (mid-20’s) is on the low side. That would be the bottom 25% for Tulane. Some kids test better on the SAT’s, some vice-versa. Maybe she could try those and if good results, appeal. Not sure if really can appeal though. Certainly her grades are very strong. But I think her ACT results knocked her out of contention for merit $$.</p>
<p>Well, that doesn’t help, but universities are aware of high schools and their limitations usually. I have talked to a few adcoms and admissions directors who told me they really don’t penalize kids who went to high schools that don’t offer many AP’s or, like your D, cannot take many. For example, some schools forbid kids from taking more than 2 a year, so they cannot take more than 4.</p>
<p>^^^ And then there are those who have kids start taking APs in their Soph year, and even on occasion in their freshman year, so it is a tough call all the way around</p>
<p>I’m guessing it’s the ACT scores, also. They are good scores for college bound kids but maybe not “in the money” good enough. From experience of my two and their friends you almost need to be 30-36 to get selective colleges to stand up and take notice with money. We discovered 26-29 is liked and rewarded by the notch down schools, but that was just my experience with S1 and S2. To translate the ACT score to $$, we found merit money generally goes to the kids in the top 25% of the entering class and falls off quickly as you move down the percentage ladder. So if you can find the common data sets or stats for last year’s entering class you might get an idea of where yours falls for each school. GPA is so all over the board school by school and no one would know how her school profile and her stats were interpreted by the individual colleges but at surface value her GPAs were good and as a broad stroke colleges like to see 3.5 unweighted and up when considering merit scholarships which your daughter has . You can also ask the colleges if there are any department based scholarships. We found some colleges don’t have those for freshman and others that did. Generally those require an application. You could also ask your GC what if any experience your school has had with scholarships from Tulane and your particular school’s students. This might give you an idea.</p>